Subject: RE: SGML and Forms From: Jonathan Marsh <jmarsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 17:06:18 -0800 |
-----Original Message----- From: Martin Bryan [mailto:mtbryan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, March 06, 1998 12:14 AM There are three things we need to do that cannot be done with the exisring IE4 implementation: 1) Locally validate entered values using sharable program modules (e.g. is the entered value a valid date). For this ECMAScript would be ideal. but there is no way of passing the value back to an ECMAScript module (define-script) in the XSL script, it can only be processed using JavaScript embedded in the form generated by the response. This is silly. If I already have a module for doing this in my input reader I should be able to use the same module to validate data entered into the form. a) I don't know why you are trying to use XSL for validation. I would expect either your data source (XML from a database?) to only generate valid values, or your input mechanism (DHTML) to do validation. XSL seems like a generally poor place for trying to do this. b) A separate issue is sharing code. XSL could easily be extended by encapsulating the shared ECMAScript in a separate file: <define-script src="fancyScript.txt"/> <SCRIPT src="fancyScript.txt"/> This looks like a minor addition that would have some value, but not a huge show-stopper in the XSL language or even in the MSXSL Preview release. Am I missing something or is this just a nit? c) XSL could eventually be implemented as a dynamic update technology - as the source XML changes (in this case the change would be caused from script triggered by the user input) XSL could create a minimal update of the display (HTML). I think this is where you would like us to be, but we just aren't there yet. 2) Check values against a local database/JDBC file and use the result to generate outputtable data. For example, if I enter an ISBN number in a field I want the associated author and title fields to be completed automatically and the cursor to move to the associated quantity field. On submission all of these fields would be treated as if they were manually entered data. At present there seem to be problems with embedding FOR instructions within the HTML output generated using XSL - for some reason this crashes IE4. In addition there is no clean way of saying "load this retrieved data into this field in the form". I would be happy to look at your output to see what is going on, whether MSXSL is crashing or IE4. If you use the command-line utility and feed the output into IE4, and it works, then the problem is within MSXSL. 3) The output needs to be stored at client side, as an XML message, before transmission, and then to be sent in this form to the recipient as part of a later, encrypted/secure transmission. Sending electronic commerce messages as plaintext CGI is just not acceptable. Sending it to a server without recording what was sent at the client is also not acceptable behaviour. While I don't understand exactly what you are trying to do, this sounds like you are complaining about MSXSL's lack of integration with the rest of the system - MSXML, DHTML, JavaScript, server-side stuff. I heartily agree. We have plans to make MSXSL easier to integrate into a web-application. Thus each component can be targeted narrowly and optimized toward solving particular problems. Jonathan Marsh phone 425.703.4591 <mailto:jmarsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> jmarsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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